Pizza shop owner fined over mouse droppings

A pizza shop owner has been fined £4,000 after mouse droppings were found all over his Black Country takeaway for the second time.

The filth and chewed up mouse bait was discovered near where workers were making kebabs, by a meat cutter, a freezer and skirting boards of San Mareno Pizza in Smethwick.

Ashiquallah Khater, aged 36, pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to keep his shop in Smethwick clean at Warley Magistrates Court.

Prosecuting, Miss Jane Lineker told the court the shop had been forced to close down for five days following the discovery of the mouse droppings but was now open for business again.

She said: "Environmental health officers from Sandwell Council carried out a routine inspection at San Mareno Pizza on September 15 last year.

"They found mouse droppings by the rear exit in the kitchen and chewed mouse bait in a food storage cupboard and on another shelf used to store food.

"More droppings were found by the exit door and some chewed blue plastic was found near where the flour was being stored.

"In the serving area of the shop officers found droppings on a kebab preparation area next to the cutter used to cut the kebab meat."

Miss Lineker said Khater agreed to close the shop but it was a further five days before officers were happy to allow it to reopen. The prosecutor said Khater who lived on the premises in Waterloo Road, had previously been issued with a caution by officers in 2006 for a similar offence.

Representing himself and speaking via an interpreter at yesterday's hearing, father-of-three Khater claimed the old age of the building made cleanliness difficult.

"After the officers came I cleaned it myself and the person responsible was dismissed. I have since employed an extra cleaning staff member."

Magistrates ordered Khater to pay £2,000 fines for each of the two counts he admitted, £1,445 in prosecution costs to Sandwell Council and a £15 victim surcharge.